Four Times
by Sorciere
Summary: Four times it wasn't all fun and games – and one time it definitely was. Sam starts his NEST training.


**Title:** Four Times Samuel Witwicky Reconsidered His Choice of Career... and One Time He Didn't

**Disclaimer:** Nothing in here is mine and I promise to put them back in the box safe and sound when I'm done playing.

**Warnings:** Spoilers for RotF, but not the books or comics, most of which I haven't read and will cheerfully ignore. Slight AU from the very end of RotF. Also, it's Sam's POV again, and he rambles. A lot, at times.

**A/N:** Man, this feels seriously anti-climatic after writing Optimus Prime. Uh, sorry about that. Set in the same AU 'verse as the rest of the Four fics, but they're not really needed for background information and this can be read as a stand-alone... although reading 'Four Things' first might be helpful. The fourth section of this fic is the prelude to the last section of 'Four Lives'. It started out completely Sam-focused, but then Will managed to butt in as well, and I decided I liked the result, since they're the only two human so far with Cybertronian citizenships and the contrast is fun to write.

****

1.

****

It was grey, it was windy, and it had been pouring down nonstop since sometime before midnight. The heat and humidity that were normal to Diego Garcia did not help on things, and zero-seven-hundred-hours Wednesday morning found Sam unhappy and already soaked, standing at attention with NEST teams Alpha through Foxtrot on a miserable, wet, windy runway.

He could just turn around and walk back inside, of course. He was there voluntarily. They couldn't pull rank on him or anything, or order him to do something he didn't want to do, and the hardass-Ranger-look on William Lennox's face almost made him consider it for a moment.

Sleep. In a nice, comfy, _dry_ bed, and he had been up faithfully at six in the morning every day for three weeks – _zero-six-hundred-miserable-hours,_ his brain corrected belatedly, because he was _tired_ – and he was starting to feel it. He could go back to bed after PT, didn't have duties to demand his time, or homework to do yet, or missions to plan, but right now it didn't matter, because he was wet and miserable and Will was looking entirely too satisfied with the situation, and for a short moment, all he wanted to do was go back inside and _sleep._

Of course, doing so would also mean losing any chance of having Ironhide and Will train him, and he knew that, too. Sometimes, he suspected himself of being a masochist, because why else would he be putting himself through misery every morning, just to be able to put himself through even _more_ misery afterwards? Sometimes he blamed it on Allspark-related insanity, or Megatron, or whatever else could be conveniently blamed. It never did change the fact that while his alarm clock had seen some abuse, he was still there every morning, on time and in his PT uniform.

"Good morning, gentlemen!" Will greeted them, and if he was affected at all by the lousy weather, it didn't show. "As you may or may not be aware, we're going to have a little brush with Tropical Storm Kanja tomorrow, so we're going for a good, long workout today. You can all thank me tomorrow when we're stuck indoors."

_May or may not be aware, my fragging aft._

Of course they were aware of it, and Sam knew it, too. It was pure sadism, nothing more. They would be busy all day preparing for the winds that would hit in little over twenty-four hours according to the most recent forecasts, and even if Sam wasn't expected to help, he would probably end up doing it, anyway. 'Bee and several of the other mechs would, at least, and it might be a good way to help convince Ironhide that he was committed enough to go through with their training. An island that was less than a ten feet above sea level took some preparation to be able to survive an almost direct hit from a tropical storm in reasonable shape – and they could thank all that was holy that it hadn't developed into a cyclone yet.

The rest of Diego Garcia was already starting to get busy. The active NEST teams would join in after PT was over, because Will had decided that the weather was perfect for a little training and you never knew what sort of conditions you would deploy in. Personally, Sam figured it was pure sadism, and that seemed to be Will and Ironhide in a nutshell and slag it all, all he wanted to do was _sleep_ and leave insane morning workouts to the people who got paid for it.

It didn't change the fact that he dropped to the ground with everyone else for push-ups, and if he had been any more awake, he might even have appreciated that he was getting less slow and was starting to be able to keep up with them for more than just the first twenty seconds. As it was, he stuck to biting, mental curses as water ran from his hair and into his eyes and made his vision blurry.

_Slagging Pit-spawned wannabe-Deception Rangers._

Above them, the rain intensified.

****

2.

****

NEST, Sam had quickly concluded, was nuts. Not just moderately unhinged, or slightly unstable, or whatever else people had claimed. NEST was flat-out nuts.

Obviously, that also meant that Sam fit right in, because he was starting to realise that he had to be more than just a little bit insane as well. It was the only reason he could think of that would explain why he was about to jump out of a perfectly good airplane, with nothing but some fabric and a Ranger between him and a quick, messy death.

Come to think of it, it wasn't that different from fighting Decepticons.

"Trust me," Will said behind him as he finished the last pre-jump checks again – more for Sam's sake than his own, probably, since he did it a bit more obviously than the troops around them did. "You'll love it!"

"Oh, you know me," Sam replied and his voice sounded a lot more cheerful than he felt. "After Megatron dropped me from a building, this is nothing. I mean, I get a parachute this time!"

"That's the spirit!" Epps clasped his shoulder, and then someone gestured to one of the crew members and the ramp was lowered. The people around them were in motion as soon as the ramp was, Sam and Will bringing up the rear.

It had sounded like a good idea when Will and Epps had suggested it. It had taken some fast talking to get Optimus Prime convinced – jumping out of an airplane was never going to be completely safe – but if he was going to work with NEST, odds were that it would come in handy to know sooner or later, and it would be a tandem jump with someone experienced, and it had sounded so much cooler when he had been on safe, solid ground and not actually staring out at empty air.

To Sam's credit, he made it all the way to the middle of the ramp before he stopped and watched with wide eyes as the last of the NEST team vanished from sight, gone in the clouds an instant later. The wind tore at his clothes and he could have sworn he felt the ramp shudder beneath them, and oh god they were all _slagged_ if that thing was torn off, and-

"I changed my mind!" Sam shouted over the noise of the engine and tried to take a step back, not sure if they would hear him at all with those helmets on, and his heartrate jacked up a notch as he watched Lennox out of the corner of his eye honest-to-Primus _grin_ and turn his head to look at the crew member in charge.

"No, he didn't!" the Ranger shouted back and gave the man a thumbs-up, even as Sam took a frantic hold on the straps of their parachute.

And then there was only sky.

****

3.

****

The bookshelf Sam had claimed for academic purposes in his and Mikaela's house had always looked harmless. Deceptively so, in fact. Human-sized datapads, after all, took up very little room, all while containing more information apiece than the entire mountain of books he'd found himself with during his futile try at a normal college life – and unlike normal books, they also kept filling up with more information, with or without his consent. Books, reports, outlines, manuals, laws, regulations... he could, he realised, spend the next ten years doing nothing but read, and he still wouldn't be done.

On his bad days, Sam resented this fact. He'd picked astronomy in college for a _reason_. If he had wanted to study law, he would have picked those classes instead... and yet still, somehow, he found himself with a datapad dedicated solely to human and Cybertronian military laws and regulations, and he didn't like to think about the fact that there would be one on civilian laws out there as well that they just hadn't given him yet.

_Q1: A human non-NEST member of the allied armed forces is found breaking Autobot protocol to access information to share with a human intelligence organisation in an allied nation (see appendix A). Under which laws should said non-NEST member be tried, and what would be a likely outcome of the court-martial?_

It had sounded like such a good idea when they had suggested it to him – Optimus and NEST and General Morshower and all. Being a human Autobot ambassador with NEST training, someone who could deal with the military and civilians and Autobots alike and then serve as a liaison between them all. A chance to do something for the species he owed so much. And sure, they had mentioned that he would have the appropriate classes, too, learn about diplomacy and law and politics and history and whatever else might come in handy, but no one had mentioned just how much and how heavy that material would be. Like he was an Autobot with millions of years to learn. By the time he got through with all the stuff, the sun would probably have burned out and humanity evolved into space-chimps or something and settled somewhere else.

"Sneaky little slaggers," Sam muttered and jabbed the datapad a bit harder than needed as it scrolled through the questions on the list.

_Q2: A political liaison with the appropriate security clearances wishes to take part in a non-combat NEST operation for the purpose of watching human-Autobot interactions in the field. The political liaison has no combat experience but does have a positive view of the alliance and could possibly use the information acquired to further much needed Autobot acceptance in human political ranks. There have been signs of Decepticon activity (see appendix B.1-4) in the area, but not within two earth months. The human NEST team is dubious but willing to accept the change in mission. What would be your recommendation?_

There was the sound of footsteps and a cup of coffee materialised on his table as Mikaela passed by in a bathrobe.

"Homework sucks," she agreed and ruffled his hair quickly before she vanished into the bathroom. "I won't be back until late – the Twins have their check-up and Ratchet'll let me help!"

_At least someone gets to have fun, then_, Sam thought moodily and picked up his coffee... although to be fair, medical check-up of the Twins sounded like it would go only marginally better than a check-up of Ironhide.

_Q3: Briefly explain the different types of Earth governments to a newly-arrived Autobot. Include examples._

He almost groaned at that, but didn't. Brief, his aft. He was already at four pages and counting for that one. Earth politics sucked to explain to a species that was used to just Autobot vs. Decepticon, and the stuff they downloaded from the internet to 'help' in their understanding was more often than not absolutely no help at all.

_Q4: Give a brief overview of the joint human-Autobot NEST command structure in regards to ranks and responsibilities._

He did groan at that. NEST command structure made perfect sense when you looked at the human and Autobot command structures separately. It stopped making sense to anyone – _including Optimus, probably,_ he thought darkly – the moment they got mixed together. Optimus Prime was easy. It went downhill from there. Where did you put Ratchet? He was their medic. Everyone would listen to him and to make it all the more unhelpful, his relative rank changed based on the situation. He could boss Optimus Prime around in a medical emergency, after all. Will's rank wasn't much better, since Sam had discovered that Autobots didn't use human-style rank much at all, and said rank had turned out to be a function instead – _Special Ops, _he had finally learned – and the 'Major' came from the fact that by carrying Autobot rank, he was at least on par with the commanding human on base, and 'Major' had been easy to remember and worked for that, and _slag it all_, he hated that stuff.

Brief overview? He shifted on the couch and opened his already-too-long response to his most recent set of homework questions. He could do brief overview, all right.

_A4: It's a clusterslag (and you know it, Optimus)._

Then he sighed and deleted it again, and made a few notes to himself on the file instead to be typed up properly later.

There was the sound of running water as Mikaela stepped into the shower, and Sam stared morosely at his coffee cup. Hot girlfriend in the shower. Homework to do. Hot girlfriend in the shower...

...And disappointed Optimus Prime if he didn't finish said homework on time and put genuine effort into it, and a check of the time revealed that he had exactly twenty-three hours and eight minutes to get it done. Optimus Prime wasn't going to get angry if it wasn't there on time, but experience told Sam that disappointment was probably a lot worse than anger would ever be. The mech just had a way of making you feel like miserably, worthless slag for letting him down like that, and it wasn't even something he did on purpose.

Hot girlfriend in the shower wouldn't help in the least, then, and sometimes, life really wasn't fair.

With a final sigh, he drained the coffee, settled down and started typing.

****

4.

****

In the end, it turned out to be sheer bad luck. It was intel they could never have gotten, even if they'd had dozens of Autobots to spare for infiltration purposes, and so there was nothing they could honestly have done to prevent it. They would still snarl about it, of course, would still second-guess themselves and wonder if there was any signs they might have missed, but the final conclusion was a resounding no.

It was sheer bad luck, but it wasn't going to make a difference to the people in the field.

It was evening in Sydney and only a bit earlier than that on Diego Garcia and Sam was learning about NEST operations the best way he could while still keeping safe, sitting in the command centre as quiet as a mouse and just listening to the communication that flowed back and forth between the base and the team in the field.

It would be nice with a live video feed as well, but technology didn't agree with them. The NEST team had enough to carry in the field as it was, and it opened up possibilities that weren't all good, either. Sam had wondered about it and then realised with a slightly sick feeling in his stomach that the NEST team did take casualties and nobody wanted to see a comrade's death live on a wall-sized screen.

_- Base, this is Alpha. We have two readings in target building. One is non-spark; we're assuming a drone.-_

The voice was unfamiliar to Sam – one of the new guys, probably, Alpha had a few of those – and a few seats over, the communications officer on duty acknowledged him.

"Alpha, this is base. Copy that, team."

They had access to the individual channels and Sam found himself accessing it before he was even aware of it. It had taken a while to learn, but he had gotten used to running multiple channels at once. The main communication was important, but the team-specific transmissions were what he was supposed to pay attention to. Decisions made in the field, based on information there was often no time to pass on to base in detail. The human-Autobot ambassador needed to know about all aspects of their alliance, not just the polished, political parts, and listening silently in the command centre had become just as much part of his training as his homework was.

_- Red squad, left entry, blue squad, right. We got a 'Con and a drone. Word from Ironhide is that the drone is armed and aggressive.-_

Sam recognised the voice as Will's, in command of Alpha team during most of their missions, and he wasn't surprised that it was Alpha team in the building with the mechs. Where Ironhide went, Will Lennox usually followed.

There was a map on the screen in front of him, with small dots marking the location of the teams and the Autobots in as close to real time as possible with the technology they had available and that could still be kept shielded from Soundwave, and he watched with a few seconds' delay as Alpha team began to move into position.

It was close to real time, but still not completely, and that became clear as the dots stayed stationary for several moments as the radio suddenly crackled to life in Sam's ear.

Harsh static, then the sound of gunfire and shouting, and he felt more than saw the people around him snap up and pay attention.

_- Target is moving, target is moving! Coming your way, Sideswipe--_

-More static, gunfire, some sort of interference on the line as the dots moved around in organised chaos-

_- Slag it to hell, someone take out the damn drone!-_

_- Target is down, I repeat, target is d--_

_- Drone is moving, drone is moving! The little fragger is up to something! Alpha, 'Hide, Sideswipe, get your slagging afts in--_

Communications died abruptly and for a moment, the command centre was frozen. Another second, and the buzz of the constant flow of information picked up again from alternate sources.

"Buddha Flight reports an EMP wave and a possible explosion," the communications officer reported. "All electronics are out in a two-klick radius. Arcee was at the edge of it, she's coming online as we speak. Sideswipe, Ironhide, and Alpha team were near ground zero. We have no radio contact with them. Buddha Flight is clear – they're turning to do a fly-over and access the situation."

No intel from the blast zone yet, then, and they waited tensely as the view on the main screen changed to the pilots' channel. EMP waves were uncommon, but they had seen them used by 'Cons before, and their target was the Autobots, not the humans. Radios would be fried, but the humans themselves would be fine, and the 'Cons had obviously realised that as well. They had learned that from experience, too, and if the EMP had been followed by an explosion this time, the battle had suddenly gotten a lot nastier.

The view on the screen changed as the pilots turned and headed back, and Sam felt a chill down his spine as the Sydney suburbs came into view again.

_- Base, this is Buddha Flight. We're in range of target building now and it's definitely an explosion, not just an EMP. Do you copy?-_

Someone whispered a soft curse and Sam watched the screen with wide eyes and silently agreed, knuckles white as he clenched his fists and listened to the voices around him.

"Buddha Flight, this is base, acknowledged."

"How many people did we have in there when it blew? Target building and half a klick radius. How many people?"

"Sideswipe, Ironhide, and Alpha team. Bravo team was with Arcee," someone reported and sounded a lot more level-headed than Sam felt at that moment.

Two Autobots and twelve humans, then, and Sam knew most of the people in there, and he didn't want to make the call, didn't want to say the words, but the building was levelled and even if his mind refused to accept it, there would be fatalities. How many and who, none of them would know until they had more information, because while they had the locations of their own people, none of them knew exactly where ground zero of the blast had been, nor how close the humans and Autobots had been to it.

Sarah Lennox had two people she cared about out there in the blast zone, and a standing order to let her know the moment anything was wrong, and it was not an order anyone was willing to defy.

Ironhide tended to find himself at the centre of the hardest battles, and Will Lennox tended to follow, and Sam stared at the phone and didn't move.

What was he supposed to say? It was Will and Ironhide out there, and even if there hadn't been much time to react, he didn't doubt that Ironhide had gone after the drone. There was a very real risk that the pair had been at ground zero when the place had gone up and that explosion had not just been designed to kill humans. That much force could easily kill an Autobot as well.

_Primus._

It would take fifteen minutes, at least, before Bravo and Arcee would be able to get to the target building, and even though he could hear orders to dispatch MEDEVAC and a search and rescue team already, it would take time for them to get there, too. He had to call. Waiting for information they might not get for half an hour or more... it was too long to wait. She wanted to know, and he could understand that, even if his mind still struggled to find the words.

"_Your husband and Ironhide are MIA. A building blew up. They were inside with their team when it happened, and we think they were near ground zero."_

"_The 'Cons set off an EMP and then blew up the target building. We haven't been able to get into __contact with anyone from the team yet, but it looks... it looks pretty bad."_

"_We'll get them home."_

"_I'm sorry."_

Samuel Witwicky took a deep breath and picked up the phone. They would get them home, all of them.

They had to.

****

5.

****

Sam wasn't quite sure where he was when he woke up, but he was dizzy, he was thirsty, he had a nasty headache... and, he realised an instant later as he tried to sit up, his stomach was rebelling. He scrambled to the bathroom while ignoring the blinding pain from his head – the barracks, he was in the _barracks_ – and then he processed to lose what little had actually been in his stomach.

He was still in the bathroom five minutes later when someone stepped inside, head resting against blissfully cool metal and utterly unwilling to look up at all.

A glass of water appeared at his side, along with a couple of pills, and Sam carefully swallowed them before he looked up and found Will looking only marginally better than Sam felt. At least the Ranger was somewhat dressed – which, Sam also realised, he himself wasn't, and the fact that he was wearing nothing but a pair of Elvis-printed shorts that he had no clue how he'd even gotten did not help on this.

Will refilled the glass, and this time Sam used the last mouthful to rinse his mouth a little before he carefully – carefully – stood up. His head still felt like someone had hammered nails into it, but at least the ground had stopped spinning. Of course, it also meant that his memory was slowly coming back as well, and he almost groaned.

"I am never, _ever_ letting you guys arrange my bachelor party again."

Will smirked at that, although the smirk did look a little pale at the edges. Good. At least he wasn't the only one hungover today, then. "'Until death do you part', kid. Hopefully, this will be the _only_ bachelor party you'll ever need." He refilled the glass again, and then he patted Sam's shoulder. "No photos after we left the bar, if that helps. Special ops. If we showed anyone, we'd have to kill them, and that'd just be a mess."

Sam stared at the glass for a moment, and then figured he might as well get it over with, because based on what he did remember, he was pretty sure he was going to be in a lot of trouble when Mikaela found out, and- "Please tell me nobody flew in strippers for the occasion."

Will shrugged. "Okay. Nobody flew in strippers for the occasion."

Sam groaned and nearly dropped his water when he rubbed one hand against his face. "You did. Oh, god. Mikaela is going to _kill_ me."

The Ranger looked honest-to-Primus _amused_ at that, and if Sam hadn't been so miserable, he would have given him a dirty glare. "Why? We flew in male strippers for the bachelorette party, too. Sarah tells me they were pretty good."

"And I'm in the barracks and not at home, because...?"

"Because you were drunk off your ass and that ain't no way to send you back to the future Mrs. Witwicky," Epps commented from the doorway, looking disgustingly well for someone who had been out celebrating with them. "She'd have kicked you out and made us pay for it."

Then the man was gone again, and Sam groaned. "And the boxers?" Elvis-printed boxers, in his exact size, and he wasn't sure whether that comforted or scared him and slag it all, his head was never going to stop hurting.

"Gift from the strippers. They're from Las Vegas," Will responded, and continued at Sam's disbelieving look. "Hey, it's hard to find strippers with security clearance. We didn't want someone who'd go talking about this nice little base in the middle of nowhere, or the fact that there was a brand new Camaro sitting in the corner of the hangar during the entire party."

_... Right. 'Bee. Oh, slag._

"So 'Bee saw me drunk off my aft, too."

Another pat on his shoulder. "Hey, it's your bachelor party. Your friends should be there. Bobby said 'Bee's fine. Bit curious about the human habit of getting slagfaced to that degree, but mostly amused. He's waiting outside whenever you get out of here for long enough to say hi."

Sam groaned again and watched as Will left the bathroom, still in an absurdly good mood for someone with a hangover like theirs, but it wasn't quite heartfelt this time. Oh, sure, he was cringing at some of the things he remembered from the night before, and he was pretty sure he wasn't going to touch alcohol again for a long time, but it was more than outweighed by the rest of it. He had _friends_ – friends who cared enough to find strippers with security clearance for his bachelor party, friends who cared enough not to immortalise the most embarrassing hours of the night, friends who found him a place to crash, and who were ready with water and painkillers when the hangover hit.

NEST could be a headache to work for sometimes, but the people definitely made up for that.

Glass in hand and with still-unsteady legs he made his way out of the bathroom, grabbed the shirt that someone had tossed on his bed, and went to find his yellow Autobot guardian.


End file.
